Travels in the Fire Nation: The Voyage Home
by Eduard Tubin
Summary: Azula and Karo book passage on an airship so Azula can plead for the return of her honor. Zuko discovers this and makes ready to greet her. Little does Azula know that Zuko has planned a series of rather unconventional trials she must complete.


**Travels in the Fire Nation**

**The Voyage Home  
**

"This ticket allows passage for one individual on Fire Nation Airship Lines." Karo read off the back of the ticket as he stood on the large grass field that served as the airship landing strip for Ba Sing Se with his bags. He waited with Azula for he airship – the Seewong – to emerge from the large hangar and pick up its allotment of passengers. The airship hangar doors creaked open and a long, silver cigar shaped sleek hulled airship slowly emerged as the ground crew slowly pulled it along.

"Have you got your sea sickness medication?" Azula asked seriously.

"Yes." Karo answered somewhat annoyed.

"All your luggage tagged?" Azula read off a small sheet of paper she held in her hands.

"Yes." Karo answered with even more annoyance. He pointed at Mitsumi as the lemur sat on his shoulder. "I even put a tag on Mitsumi but he ate it."

"Do you have your passport and my bail money?" Azula pointed at the list. "Once the Fire Nation customs officials know I have entered the country they may very well toss me in jail until Zuko lets me go."

The Seewong slowly rolled to a stop on the grass field and a herd of technicians flocked around it checking out the huge Zeppelins mechanical systems. Fire Nation airships had evolved since the War – they had given up on using hot air for lift and switched to hydrogen as a lifting gas. The hull became sleeker, silver colored, much more streamlined and the coal fired steam engines had given way to two new high powered diesel engines. Karo had seen Fire Nation airships and the fins of the airship had the same Fire Nation logo but the ship looked much cleaner with its silver aluminum paint. A half dozen men in the ground crew pulled out a wooden gang plank from beneath the gondola and prepared to let passengers board.

"We could have booked passage on a nice ocean liner." Karo held the red paper ticket close to his chest as the huge hydrogen filled envelope of the airship loomed over him. "A nice ocean liner with a casino and comfortable rooms."

"The airship offers nice rooms." Azula motioned Karo forward as she picked up her bags. "Less risk of running into an iceberg."

A pleasant looking steward bowed and took their tickets and returned the carbon copy. Karo walked into the airship and wondered if he had indeed walked into an ocean liner. The interior had rich tapestries on the wall and while the airship had to preserve space and weight the carpet felt comfortable and a friendly smell of food filled the interior. The airship had some Fire Nation touches but they had toned down the more hideous excesses in order to make the interior appear to an international clientèle. Karo looked at his ticket to find their stateroom.

"We have a stateroom for two on level three." Azula pointed to the ticket. "Grab your luggage and lets hit the lift."

Karo wondered how this hotel in the air could float. He hadn't expected to find lifts or a huge oak spiral staircase in the main lobby. He had expected drab Fire Nation industrial gray with some throw pillows tossed in the corner to hide the crude looking welds. Karo found it a bit excessive – the staircase didn't fit well and jarred with the more conservative decor of the rest of the airship.

"What can I say?" Azula pressed the call button for the lift. "I like airship travel."

"I have recovered from the shock of finding out you had plans to sneak into the Fire Nation." Karo walked into the lift. "And the fact you booked both of us on this cloth bag held together by aluminum foil."

"Press the button for the third level." Azula ordered.

"I only just realized what you have in mind could end up having us both arrested." Karo crossed his arms. The lift stopped at the third level and Azula looked at the brass sign to determine which direction their stateroom lay. "I think Zuko has a forgiving nature but it's not something I put faith in."

"My mother has nagged him to the point where where he wishes to give me back my citizenship." Azula tried to push the door of the stateroom open. "He only needs a little encouragement."

"It slides open." Karo pointed to the brass handle which had an arrow pointing sideways. "So he will give you what he wants to get Lady Ursa off his back."

"Indeed." Azula tossed her bag onto the bottom bunk. "Of course you pose a much greater danger to my mission."

"Me?" Karo wondered when the airship would take off but the public address system for the ship had remained stubbornly quiet. "I didn't wish to come along on this _mission_ of yours. I could have stayed home happily."

"My mom wished to spend time with both of us." Azula sat down on the bottom bunk next to her luggage. "And I enjoy your company."

"I feel honored." Karo said insincerely.

"Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen." A man with a pleasant Fire Nation accent spoke over the public address system. "Welcome aboard Flight 230 to the Fire Nation capitol. If you have any questions our helpful staff will be happy to help you. We will leave Ba Sing Se in ten minutes – thank you."

The public address system cut out with a pop and squeal.

"You do pose a threat. You lack skills in diplomacy." Azula reminded Karo. "The Fire Nation nobility still clings to their traditional ways and I fear you may say something inappropriate that they may take as rude or crude."

"I have to use all that formal language?" Karo looked at Azula with a pained expression in his green eyes. He had grown up in Ba Sing Se and had a decidedly casual attitude to his betters. He didn't as much act rude as ignore the socially elevated customs of the upper class. Karo knew if anyone would say something inappropriate Azula could and would do it. Azula regarded the phrase 'stick it where the sun doesn't shine' as a simple and effective means of asking to be left alone.

"Proper Fire Nation speech with all the formal forms." Azula answered as she felt the airship rock gently.

Karo cringed at the thought. The Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation used the same written language with minor squabbles over the order of characters but the Fire Nation had raised the spoken language to a fine art which included different verbs and styles of speech for deference or level of formality. Scholars had stated Fire Nation speech had remained closer to classical Chinese while Earth Kingdom Common had developed degenerate forms. Of course most of the scholars making that claim came from the Fire Nation - the rest wrote acerbic letters to the editor about the misuse of commas. The Fire Nation had tried to explain all of this to the public during the occupation of Ba Sing Se and even held classes which consisted mostly of propaganda.

All of polite formality stuff blew past Karo like quantum mechanics went over Mitsumi's head. He regarded such linguistic fussiness regarded it as stupid and useless – kind of the linguistic equivalent of birth control for Eunuchs. Karo pondered in his mind the proper way to express the first person, formal past subjunctive in Fire Nation and realized he simply wanted to say -_ If I were a rich man!_

"Don't roll your _r_ sound either." Azula cautioned. "And quit using the word _a_ or _the_."

"I need those words!" Karo had prepared a long lecture on how Earth Kingdom Common became incomprehensible without the use of articles when the captain began to speak.

"Welcome aboard Flight 230. We have begun our ascent from Ba Sing Se. We will reach cruising altitude in twenty minutes." The captain spoke as the engines on either side of the ship started and roared to life.

* * *

Airships did not have speed going for them. It took an hour and a half to reach the outer wall of Ba Sing Se. Karo and Azula had not left the stateroom since they wished to maintain a low profile lest anyone notify the Fire Nations customs officials that the banished Princess had hopped and airship to return quietly to the Fire Nation. Karo had a bad nosebleed and had tissues stuffed in his nostrils.

"I think the language processing center of my brain exploded." Karo said with a nasal tone to his voice. "All of your talk of conjugating nouns or declining verbs or reclining adjectives to sound polite broke my brain."

"You have hemophilia." Azula explained. "The altitude has gotten to you."

"Lovely." Karo lay on the floor.

"Not from this angle." Azula placed her hand on Karo's forehead. "I don't have Katara's touch but I may have learned a few things during the War. Hold still for a second while I use fire bending to cauterize the blood vessels in your nose."

"Run that one by me again?" Karo lay back on the red carpet and felt the dull vibrations of the engines through his back. "How does murdering me by fire bending up my nose help further your plans to regain your Fire Nation honor."

"When a soldier had a serious bleeding wound we trained the medics to stop the bleeding with fire bending." Azula explained calmly.

"Have you ever tried this yourself?" Karo stared up at the light in the ceiling.

"No. I did see it performed on a soldier with serious head wounds." Azula scratched her forehead. "You can't keep bleeding or you will no longer be fit to appear in public and I will want to go for dinner. This airship has one of the finest dining rooms in all of the realm. It will do us no good to have you bleeding all over. It will attract undue attention and make other passengers uncomfortable."

"So this soldier." Karo looked up at Azula. "Did he live?"

"No." Azula pulled the tissue paper out of Karo's nose. "We stopped the bleeding but putting all of his brains back in his skull posed some difficulties for our medics. Now hold still."

A small blue flame came from Azula's fingers. She aimed it very precisely up Karo's nostrils and a small puff of smoke rose up as Karo's nostril hair burned off.

"Oh my great mother of Creation!" Karo yelled at the top of his lungs as Azula quickly did her work. "Yeow!"

Karo's eyes watered and he screamed but the bleeding stopped.

"Didn't anyone tell you to use a local anesthetic!?" Karo held his face and jumped up and down. "I can't smell my aftershave! I can't see anything – no wait I took my glasses off! Lets take the boyfriend out and bake his brain at three thousand meters!? Oh man you ever have to pluck your nose hairs? Imagine that a thousand times worse."

"You stopped bleeding." Azula assured Karo. "Open the window the smell of burned nostril hair is making me sick."

"You do know we ride in a gasbag filled with explosive hydrogen gas?" Karo had calmed down a bit a s the sharp pain subsided but he still felt slightly pissed. He understood Azula's actions although she had not given him ample bracing time to prepare for the flood of pain. He held his hands to his head. "Think about how that could _impact_ our voyage before you chose the fire bending option for solving problems."

* * *

"You don't have any nosebleeds." Azula sat with Karo in the galley as they waited for the highly rated Fire Nation chef to serve up dinner. "And you have no nose hair."

"Would you shave your legs with such _finesse_?" Karo angrily growled as he felt the bridge of his nose.

The galley looked plain but the tables had nice red napkins, red china and red glass. Chopsticks came packaged in red wrappers with a white Fire Nation logo and everything had the Fire Nation logo. The friendly smell of tea and cooking filled the galley and servers went through the growing dinner crowd taking orders for drinks and tea.

"May I ask what you wish to drink?" A pleasant server about the same age as Karo bowed in front of the table.

"Two teas." Azula answered back. "Why don't you get a job as a server on an airship? You could travel and see the world, I could get free passage as your fiancée."

"I get airsick and my girlfriend blew out most of the blood vessels in my head." Karo held the menu to his face. "I hate travel and with you we both end up incarcerated. Win – win."

"You can be polite and suck up to strangers." Azula pointed the package of chopsticks at Karo as if to emphasize her point. "We'll get by with my cunning and your - help me I'm drawing a blank. We should survive."

"What have you got planned for our tour of the Fire Nation?" Karo growled as he accepted his tea from the server. "Spelunking in an active volcano? Vivisection? See if I glow light a light bulb when you pump lightning through me? See how big a boyfriend I attract in prison? You can tell me – has Mai invited me to her annual man stabbing? Don't hold me in suspense here – I need to decide who gets my oboe!"

"I tried to help." Azula held her tea and blew on it.

"Why does this taste like warm water with a gopher dipped in it?" Karo made a disgusted looking face as he sipped his tea.

"You will notice your sense of smell and taste will appear a bit off because of the nose bleed." Azula explained. "Or I burned off whatever it is we use to smell."

"Never mind Azula." Karo decided to drink the tea and give up on the argument. "I know you want to regain your Fire Nation citizenship and your honor. I think your brother went over the top when he banished you – believe it or not I do know what it feels like."

"You have the most aggravating character traits of any person I ever met." Azula sipped her tea slowly steadying herself to deliver her verbal venom."You have no courage, you bitch about every inconvenience, you have the ability to utterly miss the point of many arguments and you prattle on about things of no importance. Still if you bled to death I would miss you – you put up with me."

"You trying to say you love me?" Karo smiled but then noticed half of his face wouldn't obey the command and decided simply to grin.

"Don't get maudlin." Azula looked down at her tea.

* * *

Karo lay back on his top bunk with his eyes tearing from the smarting pain of having his bleeding staunched by fire bending. The sun had set and a full moon had come out to provide its ghostly light to the room. They would land in the Fire Nation capitol tomorrow which meant a warm greeting, internment or both. Karo knew teaching Azula the equivalent of human affection amounted to the kind of task faced by the circus trainer explaining the nature of the emission spectrum of the hydrogen atom to a hog monkey. Somehow the hog monkey didn't get it, didn't care about it and wouldn't sit still long enough for the concepts to sink in.

Karo could smell sulfur fumes through the open window of their state room. This meant he had regained some of his sense of smell in the last two days and either the diesel engines exhausted near the window or they had passed close to an erupting Fire Nation volcano.

Azula lay in bed with her own thoughts. She couldn't sleep and rehearsed in her mind what she might say to her brother if somehow she didn't end up in prison for defying his will. Zuko had the ability to make hard decisions and might decide to simply imprison her for defying his orders. She had to take the risks – this mattered to her. She knew Karo would end up unscathed by all of this because Zuko had no reason to punish him. He had a well placed family in the Fire Nation and Ba Sing Se and he had no restrictions on traveling to the Fire Nation.

"Karo you awake?" Azula felt the airship make a slight course adjustment and the moon in the window dipped down slightly.

"Yeah...thinking." Karo spoke softly from the top bunk. "I need lessons on how to use a shiv for prison. Could you teach me?"

"Have you practiced your bows?" Azula asked carefully.

"Yes...but." Karo protested. "Lady Mai And Lord Zuko know me so they know I have my rough edges."

"You still use _a_ and _the_?" Azula asked.

"I need those words - they are among my favorites." Karo sniffled from his bunk and Mitsumi snored as he lay at Karo's feet.

"What will you do if they imprison me and let you free?" Azula asked quietly.

"You do have some protection because you have become a citizen of Ba Sing Se." Karo answered with some authority. "The Fire Nation has found itself in a rather weak economic position and depends on us for resources like food. I doubt if Zuko would cause a large scale diplomatic incident by throwing one of our citizens in jail."

"Great." Azula turned over in her bed. "My brother will not throw me in jail because Ba Sing Se would cut off our Borax supplies so all our linens would get itchy?"

"Zuko has a choice: soft boxers or us in jail. How delicate is his skin?" Karo asked cautiously.

* * *

"Ambassador Shainu of Ba Sing Se informed me that my sister and Karo Zhao have boarded an airship in Ba Sing Se and intends to petition me for her citizenship back." Fire Lord Zuko paced the throne room with the rhythm of the flames growing more intense as he spoke. He had no need for Princess Azula although Lady Ursa had continued to remind him of his duty to family. Lady Mai listened carefully and stood next to her husband as he thought things out and examined the report from the ambassador. Mai had stated many times her wish to see Azula spend time in a dark cell in the prison on the Boiling Rock. She didn't have any desire to see harm come to Karo but she knew they had become close so she had softened her tone when speaking with Zuko.

"The terrible twosome." Mai added.

"Indeed." Zuko had a thoughtful look on his face as he tried to find the fine line that would allow him to keep peace between him and his mother and yet amuse Mai.

"According to this report they arrive early this afternoon." Mai held out the report. "How do you want to greet them?"

"We have to tread carefully." Fire Lord Zuko paced the throne room platform behind the curtain of orange flame. "My mother still cares for Azula and she would resent it if I harmed her in any way."

"I doubt if Ba Sing Se would get too upset if we threw the Princess into a cell for a few months." Mai leaned against the great steel Fire Nation throne. "They have no reason to protect her. Why would they resent us for arresting her for illegally entering the country?"

"I doubt if Ba Sing Se would protest but I have other issues to consider." Zuko stated in his calm but humorless and stiff way. "I do not want to make enemies of Karo or Lady Zhao."

"The Zhao's hardly count as important citizens in Ba Sing Se. Lady Zhao and Karo could protest all they wished but in the end they don't determine your decisions. You have a legal right to arrest Azula." Mai reminded her husband. "You could place Azula back in the asylum and your mother could visit her all she wished."

"Karo would resent it." Zuko paused and faced Mai. "Even if we could capture and keep Azula – and I have no certainties on that point. We had to keep her constantly under guard during her stay in the asylum and even then I still don't believe we could have kept her in captivity had she the will to up and leave."

"I wouldn't fear_ Karo_." Mai gave her best attempt at a snicker. "He would never work up the courage to challenge you."

"Everyone underestimates him." Zuko stood still for a moment but his eyes narrowed. "I think that could prove dangerous. Karo can fire bend and use lightning and in his own odd way has great power as a fire bender."

"Little Karo Zhao?" Mai almost laughed.

"Have you also forgotten we are _cousins_?" Zuko shrugged. "Karo comes from the line of Zhao and Roku. He belongs to the royal family and he could have a claim to the throne."

"He would fall to you in an Agni Kai." Mai reserved some contempt for Karo.

"He wouldn't challenge me – he would publish a _manifesto_." Zuko sighed. "He has the printing presses of Ba Sing Se as an ally. He would argue that the citizens of the Fire Nation bore all the costs of the War and they received nothing in return and he would be right. He would argue the citizens should take charge of the country and run it according to democratic principles based on freedom and justice. I have tried to help our people but we still have a noble class with most of the power, lack real democracy and no one would call us a meritocracy."

"You have Avatar Aang as one of your best friends." Mai put her arms around Zuko.

"He takes Karo's side on many of these issues." Zuko seemed distracted.

"While fleeing my sister I learned the value of having many close friends." Zuko patted Mai's hands. "I count Aang as one my closest friends but he is the Avatar and he seeks balance. He would protect our lives but not my position if he realized my abdication would better the condition of my people."

"We still can't let Azula act as she will." Mai leaned against Zuko's shoulder. She understood all of the challenges Zuko faced as Fire Lord and decided to return to the original topic.

"I do have a plan." Zuko held the scroll in his hand. "When Avatar Aang visited Omashu after his return he met his old friend King Bumi. Bumi placed three challenges before him to test his talents. Why not test Azula?"

"In what way?" Mai smiled a slight smile as if her face would break.

"A few mind games?" Zuko placed his arms behind his back still holding the scroll. "Azula might enjoy a few puzzles. I have called upon several _friends_ to provide challenges that will require both Karo and Azula to fully work out."

* * *

"At least they didn't loose our luggage." Karo sat in the bare metal customs cell and waited with Azula for something significant to happen.

_Hehehehe! Snort! Hehehehehe!_

_ Crunch!_

"Something has encased me in basalt." Karo looked down at the reddish gray rock that covered his body.

"Oh dear Lord!" Azula placed her head in her hands when she realized who they were about to meet. She had fallen victim to the cone of earth as well.

"Hello there." A man in fancy robes in non spectral colors like fuchsia busted down the door with his feet. He had a healthy looking muscular build, far too many rings with far too many gems for a male of the species and he looked to Karo as if he could make a surprisingly good living playing show tunes. Azula recognized him instantly as the wise King Bumi of Omashu. Karo could see great age in his face and in his disgusting unshaved armpits and wondered if he measured his age in years or Uranium half lives.

_Snort!_

"I have come to test the indomitable moral character of the great Princess Azula." He looked at Azula with his bad eye. "Will she choose to fight her brother to rule the Fire Nation and regain her throne? The end of your banishment depends on how you meet three challenges. If she fails to meet these challenges she may end up ruling the Fire Nation but Karo will meet an unpleasant end."

"Why not kill me now!?" Karo sneered. "Blasting gel in my robes? Pork rendering plant accident – render my fat into lard so the funeral will cost nothing!? Come on Sir Bumi – the Princess has a new nation to rule!"

"Keep calm young Zhao." King Bumi leaned close to him and spoke with a disturbing casual air in his voice. "No harm will come to you if Azula choses wisely but if she choses unwisely _you will suffer her fate!_ Fire Lord Zuko wishes to know what lies in his sisters heart."

"My brother thought of this?" Azula said calmly.

_Snort!_

"I did." King Bumi laughed in his annoying manner.

"Come on." King Bumi blasted a huge hole through the customs building side sending stones and concrete flying into the air. The lower part of the Fire Nation capitol became visible in the bright sunshine of the afternoon. Both Karo and Azula began to move along the earth at startling speed. King Bumi laughed like a maniac while Azula watched the red roofs of her old home town slide by.

* * *

"I welcome death." Karo spoke insincerely as he sat beside Lady Mai with his hands in chains behind his back

Lady Mai held her young daughter who kept playing with Mitsumi's tail. Zuko sat proudly in his robes next to Lady Mai watching King Bumi as he stood on a stone platform in the center of the ring and cleared his throat. Lady Ursa stood quietly back and watched with a note of concern on her face. The Agni Kai ring looked like a hockey arena with a stone floor and seats around it for the gawking fans. Much to Karo's annoyance – unlike a hockey arena – this place did not serve beer to those in the stands.

Karo watched with full awareness that he big burly guards standing behind him had spears longer than he was tall and had them pointed at his back. Karo anticipated a very bad day.

"Young Azula! You face your first trial." King Bumi stood in the midst of the Fire Nation Agni Kai ring as Karo looked helplessly on. Azula stood in the center of the Agni Kai ring with her arms at the side. The platform vanished into the ground and King Bumi walked to the side of the Agni Kai ring.

"Any hints?" Azula took up a combat stance.

A turtle duck mother and her seven ducklings walked out onto the Agni Kai ring where Zuko had once met his father in combat. Azula stared in disbelief and gave Bumi the kind of look one gives a madman. The turtle duck mother looked at Azula for a second. From the other side of the ring a second flock of ducklings and a turtle duck mother walked out and glanced at Azula. By the time the fourth family entered the Agni Kai ring Azula began to wonder if she had put on Karo's glasses or her brain had finally given up on reality. A flash of recognition flashed across the faces of the turtle duck mothers and Azula and the turtle ducks looked back at their ducklings and somehow told them to take cover under the seats of the arena.

All four turtle ducks rushed Azula like muggers taking down an old lady. Azula knew she could take all the turtle ducks out on a fast fire bending attack. The turtle ducks mobbed her and pecked at her legs and she didn't attack them. Karo had a confused look on his face as Azula backed up trying to avoid the angry turtle ducks.

"What kind of a trial is this?" Azula stood on one leg and tried to push a turtle duck off her clothes. The duck had determined to hold on with a death grip on her pants. She tried to pull the duck off while three others pecked at her foot. This didn't work and the turtle duck let go of her pants and bit her hand. She replied with a string of obscenities. "Yeow!"

"You could wipe all of them out with a single gesture." King Bumi stood at the side and advised Azula.

"Hardly – ow – sporting!" Azula had a turtle duck with a death grip on her hand, one had found its way up to her nose and pecked at her face while the other two pecked at her feet tripping her. "I can't kill – yeow! I could roast ducks but – ow – one of them crawled up my vest – oh this can't end well."

Azula managed to crawl on her hands to the edge of the Agni Kai ring and made an amusing sight for Lady Mai. Four turtle duck mothers pecked her as she tried to climb up and out of the ring into the relative safety of the stands. One of the ducks managed to grab her nose with its beak. She pulled it off her face and tossed it gently on the ground as she helped herself up. Lady Mai had begun to snicker. Lady Ursa and Zuko expected Azula to reach her limit and the arena to fill with the smell of roasted duck. It never happened. Azula had another duck in her hands and tossed it gently down on the floor of the Agni Kai ring. The turtle duck lost interest and went back to her ducklings. A third duck pecking at her legs decided to collect her children and waddled off still quaking loudly – Azula imagined she had just received the four letter serenade from a duck.

"Can someone please help me?" Azula cried out somewhat pitifully. "I have a duck in my clothing!"

_Snort!_

"Who really cares about ducks." King Bumi rushed out into the middle of the ring with the flourish of a circus ringmaster. He waved his arms and a second platform rose up out of the ground.

"I mean it!" Azula looked to her mother then to Mai. "I find this rather intrusive!"

_ Quack!_

Azula found the duck in her clothing and while it pecked her hand viscously she let it go with a gentleness that surprised even Karo.

"The revenge of the turtle ducks!?" Azula yelled at King Bumi. "By torturing them as a child, I may have bred them to become insane killers – I know that much!"

"Why didn't you use your fire bending and kill them?" King Bumi bellowed then laughed.

"Well?" Azula stood balanced on the chair. "I don't know. I couldn't bring myself to do that?"

"Interesting." King Bumi played with the feather in his ornamental hat.

"They can't really fight back and all those turtle ducklings would have no mother and no one to care for them." Azula blurted out in a moment of honesty and pain. "I did enough cruel things to them. I couldn't deprive them of their mothers."

"You have passed your first test." King Bumi announced with a showman's flourish.

"I really am in a great deal of pain." Azula stood back on the ground after she made certain no more turtle duck mothers remained in the ring.

* * *

"I hate turtle ducks." Azula walked the palace grounds with her mother. "Did I tell you that?"

"On many occasions dear." Lady Ursa had calmed her daughter down after she had tried to blow King Bumi up with a lightning bolt. They walked together in the gardens that surrounded the palace and both of them worried about Karo who had vanished with two mean looking Fire Nation guards.

"I have two more trials and I have no idea how I passed the first one." Azula passed by a large rose bush and she saw a pink dagger sail toward her mother. Azula pushed her mother down to the ground and kicked the dagger out of the air then grabbed it by the handle and glanced around.

Azula glanced around while keeping herself between the dagger's direction of travel and her mother. Azula pushed her mom carefully back as she searched the palace grounds for any movement that might betray an attacker's position. Azula backed up toward the palace entrance with her mother behind her. Three arrows narrowly missed Azula's head as they made a meaty thud and buried themselves in the dark gray basalt of a nearby pillar. Azula had no weapons and she had to worry about someone taking out her mother who crouched behind her. Three throwing knives embedded themselves in the ground between Azula and Lady Ursa. Azula glanced around, pulled one of the knives out of the ground and tried to find her attacker. The clear sunshine of the late afternoon should have made for easy spotting but either Azula had lost much of her touch or her attacker knew her attacks. She rushed her mother to the palace and pushed her into a side entrance and into the embrace of two waiting guards posted there. Knives flew at her as she did this and she caught one in midair.

Lady Ursa found safety in the palace as guards descended on her to shield her. Azula squinted and looked for any clue as to the attacker. She knew the attacker had moved along the roof line of the palace compound buildings heading toward her.

Lady Mai landed with a delicate thump between Azula and the main entrance of the palace.

"I can now eliminate you." Lady Mai took up a fighting stance. "Zuko and Ursa wish to help you but your return has given me the chance to take my revenge on a banished princess."

"Oh!" Azula looked at Mai with some bemused confusion. "I had not anticipated you would murder me."

"You do not plan to attack me?" Mai looked at the knife in Azula's hand. "You can strike me down in many unspeakable ways. Kill the friend who betrayed you at the Boiling Rock."

"No." Azula tossed the two knives far from her into the bushes. "I can't ever forgive you for your treachery but I do wish to kill you. I will defend myself and my mother but I won't fight you."

"Why?" Lady Mai did not relax her stance.

"Zuko would have me killed for murdering his wife." Azula gave a brief half smile as she raised her right eyebrow. "And your daughter deserves a mother – even one as horrid as you."

Mai stood in amazement as Azula turned around in her strangly calm manner. She knew Mai could not murder but she knew her friend well enough to know Mai posed a small risk. Azula waved her hand as a casual goodbye and walked away past the rosebushes as Mai shook her head.

_Snort!_

"You have passed the second trial." King Bumi walked out from behind a basalt column that held up the roof of the courtyard grandstand.

"I still can use lightning." Azula said grimly.

* * *

"Karo will suffer the same fate as me?" Azula stood before King Bumi.

"If you end up ruling this place because of what you do – he will stand by your side as you govern." King Bumi chewed on a purple piece of clear glass like rock making disgusting crunching noises as he did so. Azula had found Bumi on the Fire Nation throne after searching the palace in vain for Zuko or Karo.

"If I end up in prison at the whim of my brother?" Azula's eyes narrowed. "Karo ends up in prison? If my brother strikes me down, Karo dies?"

"You know the nature of combat as well as I do." King Bumi said in an enigmatic way. "Karo could die or end up in prison but you could rule this nation. What if you had to kill him because his moral conscience and caution kept you from achieving your ambitions? Sozin let Avatar Roku die at the volcano so he could defeat the Air Nomads and achieve his grand vision."

"Karo has no capacity for any such scheming. I could bend him to my will but even then the Avatar would not let me achieve any _grand visions_." Azula put her hands behind her back but she felt disoriented. A faint sweet odor of incense filled the room.

King Bumi had dimmed the lighting in the throne room in the late evening which had a chilling effect on Azula. In the dim light he had an ogre like appearance. She feared having to take him on in a trial of his earth bending versus her fire bending.

"Challenge your brother to an Agni Kai and defeat him. I have Karo and will release him to you." King Bumi gave an evil look out of his good eye. "Remember Karo will suffer the fate you suffer. You could easily cut down your brother and destroy Lady Mai if she chose to oppose you. You would live and so would Karo."

The throne room went dark and she strained to listen.

"What about the tests?" Azula asked in a whisper and began to imagine the eyes of a demon glowing green through the darkness. "The Fire nation might be mine but Karo?"

"What of him?" The voice behind the eyes hissed.

"He could never bring himself to accept a role in such a plot." Azula scuffed her feet against the ground. "He would think me a monster and turn his back on me. I would have to hold him as my prisoner to keep him. I would still lose his friendship so I would end up losing anyhow."

"He is weak and a coward. You once controlled people by terror and fear. Karo doesn't matter – only the strong survive in this world." The voice made itself sound seductive and tempting.

"My father said that." Azula tore her eyes away from the eyes that lit up a face she could not see as human. "I once believed that. I schemed to try to deprive my brother of the throne by using the fact I knew the Avatar lived – I could humiliate him before my father who would have him killed for treason. He seemed weak but in the end I broke."

"Scheme as only you can." The voice hissed and Azula saw the face of a hideous ogre behind it. The voice reminded her of Lord Ozai. "Take the throne and leave Karo to his fate. You will have power over millions."

"Karo is weak." Azula looked down with tears in her eyes. "He can't fight and he hates conflict. He can act dumb as a post and has about as much musical talent as one. He grew up with his mother as a refugee, had terrible problems with his homosexual tendencies and suffered awful persecution. He still survived it so perhaps my father's idea of strength has a fatal flaw. He finds something to keep him happy, beautiful and free. He has become my best friend and I want to see him again."  
"What do you mean to say Princess Azula?" The voice seemed to grow closer and Azula backed up into one of the posts of the throne room.

"I don't want the throne." Azula answered back as she felt the cold steel of the pillar at her back and realized she could not retreat. "My father had the some distorted ideas about letting the weak perish. He was a cruel man and he was very wrong. The Fire Lord as the leader of his nation has a duty to the weak, the unjustly treated and oppressed. My brother Zuko can perform that duty while I cannot."

"Interesting." The voice grew quiet. "All the power and nothing inside you wishes to seize it?"

"I could not hold it." Azula fell against the post and closed her eyes.

"Azula?" Karo's voice rang out from the side of the throne room. Azula opened her eyes and found the throne room brightly lit once more.

"You have passed the third test." Bumi sat on the Fire nation throne and smiled.

"What did they do to you?" Karo helped Azula to her feet. "I saw the duck torture but then they locked me in the prison where they kept your father for the rest of the day."

"Are you pondering what I am pondering?" Azula put her arm around Karo's shoulder.

"I think so." Karo's green eyes grew wide. "But while the wearing of asbestos underwear might protect you against a fire bending attack wouldn't an earth bender be able to use his powers to defeat you with the mother of all wedgies?"

" The Universe is as it should be." Azula looked at Bumi with a severe look as he snorted.

"Good bye young Azula and young Karo." King Bumi's voice boomed and he smiled with a wide half toothless grin. "Azula? At a ceremonial dinner tomorrow evening Fire Lord Zuko will restore your citizenship and your honor. Karo will be welcomed back into the Fire Nation."

* * *

"Thank your brother for a wonderful time in prison." Karo lay in his bed with a scroll about fire bending forms a servant had fetched from the palace library. "Did you know a Doctor Leng Tong?"

"Short and portly guy with a monk's fringe of dark gray hair? He worked at the asylum while I was there. He did outpatient counseling for those discharged." Azula sat up in her bed reading another in the _World At War _series of 'historically accurate' graphics novels entitled _The Battle at the Walls of Ba Sing Se_. "What did he do? Finally arrested for peddling pseudo science as useful self help advice – a crime against real science?"

"He kept telling me how he cooked his wife!" Karo spoke up suddenly. "Somehow the stone wall and bars between our cells didn't seem quite enough."

"You didn't get invited to dinner did you?" Azula asked slyly. "How did he cook his wife? A nice roast or a stew of wife? Wife stir fry perhaps?"

"How do you feel." Karo wished to change the subject from roast wife to anything else. "You met the challenges but I only saw the Agni turtle duck before the guards dragged me off under Fire Lord Zuko's orders."

"Having fire bending is kind of like having herpes, you got screwed when you got it, and you would get rid of it if you could." Azula lay back in her bed as she contemplated the events of the preceding day. "Did they think I would mindlessly slaughter little ducks? I can't imagine anyone approving of such conduct."

"You wish you hadn't been born a fire bender?" Karo lay in the large bed next to hers. A dim red reading lamp illuminated a scroll on the life of Avatar Roku he had begun to read.

_Rumble!_

_ Ka Blam!_

"What the?" Karo leaped out of bed and stared out the window across the city into the darkness.

_Voom!_

Azula pointed out the window to the extreme southern horizon.

"Ember Island committed suicide." She announced dryly. She could see a dark cloud south of the capitol in an otherwise clear night sky. It boiled into the sky with lightning streaking out of it. It looked fluffy like a plague of gray rats boiling out of a sewer. It seemed to invite those witnessing it to panic and flee.

A knock came at the heavy wooden door and Karo trudged to the door grumbling something about everything from beds to doors being made to a scale best suited to those with pituitary problems. With some trouble Karo pulled the door open.

"Excuse me sir. I am sorry to disturb you." A servant in a tall red miter held out a message. "The volcano at the center of Ember Island erupted about an hour ago. We will be quite safe here but no one can leave the capitol until the ash clouds and the threat of tsunami have subsided."

The servant politely handed Karo the scroll as Azula looked over his shoulder. Karo bowed and the servant bowed then left quietly.

"Crap." Karo stood up. He felt a bit jumpy after having feared for his life in prison and when Azula breathed down his neck he felt a start.

"Nearly two years." Azula mumbled and walked back to her bed. "Last time Ember Island erupted it went on for a year and a half."

"When did this happen?" Karo placed the note on the table.

"During the lifetime of Avatar Kyoshi I think." Azula pulled the red linens over her head. "Don't worry. It didn't kill anyone, it merely screwed up shipping during that time."

"And airship travel?" Karo stood at the door still holding it open by the steel handle.

"Impossible." Azula assured him. "Can't fly when you can't see and the ash could clog up the engines or the ship might blow up."

"Terrific." Karo let go of the handle and the door closed with a gentle thump.

"We might get passage on a Water Tribe ship." Azula mumbled. "On the high seas for many weeks singing sea shanties with manly Water Tribe men. I would rather die but you might find something positive about it."


End file.
